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Thursday, 03/18/1999
NAFTA
Corporations take advantage of cheap labor, older employees
Employees can do little to prevent or end mistreatment by supervisors.
By DEBORAH MARTINEZ of Southwest Texas State University
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News-Sentinel photo by C. Somodevilla
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Better times
Celidonia Arguelles Tellez, 34, kisses her son, Zenaydo Pozos Arguelles, 13, as he arrives home from school in the border city of Reynosa, Mexico. Tellez moved from her home in Veracruz, in the interior of Mexico, to the border region looking for better work. She found it in a job at Raddco. |
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MATAMOROS, Mexico — Vicki Barajas got her first job at a maquiladora at age 15.
When she rejected her supervisor's advances, he threatened to transfer her from the office to the dreaded assembly line, where conditions are stressful and often dangerous. She gladly took the demotion and never reported her boss.
Had she told on him, she would have been fired, Barajas said. Twenty-two years later, not much has improved for women who work in maquiladoras, the 38-year-old mother of two said.
Barajas, who now works at Philips Electronics, a maquila in Matamoros, said workers, especially women, are often at the mercy of managers.
"They get mad at you for standing up," Barajas said. "They tell you we have no right to say anything because they are our livelihood."
Primarily set up along the U.S.-Mexico border, maquiladoras are spinoff firms created to benefit from relaxed trade barriers between Mexico, Canada and the United States.
Fire, re-hire
Sexual harassment is just one issue firms and their workers face, but it is an important one because between 50 and 60 percent of maquila workers are women.
Another issue is low wages. Recently, employers announced a new pay scale and cut starting salaries in half. Employers promised that only new workers would be affected.
But shortly after the announcement, maquiladoras began firing longtime workers who were then rehired at entry-level wages, workers and their advocates say. Many veteran maquila employees now earn $5 a day, half of what they earned previously.
To get older, better-paid workers to resign, supervisors purposely make the work environment unbearable, Barajas said.
"If before the treatment was horrible, now it's even worse," said Barajas.
"They're trying to chase off old employees so they can hire new ones and pay them lower wages than we're used to. They're sharks."
Philips makes air condition controls, air bags and power window switches for automobiles. It is owned by the Dutch electronics giants N.V. Philips, which operates in America as Philips Electronics North America Corp. The firm formerly owned Magnavox in Fort Wayne.
Attractive locale
The cheap labor market has fueled the explosion of business relocations to northern Mexico, and more maquiladoras are opening in Mexico's interior.
Since 1980 there has been a 409 percent increase in the number of maquila firms. There were 578 in 1980 and 2,941 by early 1998.
While most are American-owned, Asian and Mexican firms have increased their share, according to the Rio Grande Valley Chamber of Commerce.
"With the border being near, there are more companies here," said Celidonia Arguelles Tellez, a 34-year-old mother of two.
She moved to Reynosa and works at Raddco, a firm that produces automobile parts.
"There's more money here. Although work in maquiladoras is difficult and the pay is about the same in Veracruz, there is more opportunity to have a job here," Tellez said.
And education opportunities are better for her sons, 15-year-old Leonardo and 13-year-old Royzc, said Pedro Zequera Castellanos, Tellez's 26-year-old husband of three years.
Maquiladoras provide opportunity, said Castellanos, a worker at Tele Azteca.
"The addition of American maquiladoras made it better," said Castellanos.
Organized activism
Union activism is now on the rise to protect the more than 1 million Mexicans who work in border and interior Mexican maquiladoras.
Unions do not automatically spell relief for overworked and sometimes abused employees, however, said Domingo Gonzalez, an activist in Matamoros.
Promoting causes for nearly 30 years, Gonzalez said the plight of the Mexican maquiladora worker is one of his strongest interests, and one of the workers' strongest unions is in Matamoros.
"The union will protect the worker and even fine the supervisor if they're mistreating workers."
Some unions have fought for and won on-site child-care facilities, maternity leave for women, and housing and educational opportunities.
Without an education or other resources, residents are forced to seek employment with maquilas, said Francisco Bocanegra Torres. Like the Castellanos family, Torres and his wife moved to Matamoros from Veracruz to work in a maquiladora.
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